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Travel

When I (Em) was in Paris a few months ago, I couldn’t figure out why the bridge behind Notre Dame was covered in thousands of tiny padlocks (plus a few bike locks). They weren’t there when Lo and I visited back in 2004. A quick bit of Googling (thanks to “wee-fee,” as the French call wifi) and I learned that they were “love locks” — a fairly recent tradition wherein couples celebrate their love (and, perhaps, hope to ensure its survival) by affixing a padlock to a romantic bridge and tossing the key into the river below. They might also attach a ribbon to the padlock, or simply adorn it with their initials. When I was there, enterprising young salespeople were selling new padlocks at each end of the bridge in case you were moved to do the same.

We’re suckers for a good Kickstarter project — all that hope and passion and entrepreneurship, and you can be part of it for less than the cost of a dinner out. The most recent one we heard of is called The Placebo Chocolate Effect (we’re fans based on the name alone). The story reads like the dude version of Eat, Pray, Love: Daniel Jacobs set off on a trip around the world in search of a cure for a deep sadness he felt (hang in there, it gets better). Along the way he met a bunch of people who inspired him, including an old lady in Scotland who gave him a “prescription” for love — actually it was just these words scribbled on a piece of paper: “Take this love I give you, use it as often as you need, and share it when you are ready.” After meditating in Spain, volunteering at an orphanage in Guatemala, building a sustainable farm in Argentina, and writing beside painters in Chile (we’re not kidding), Daniel finally found love (of course he did), and then he discovered that love had been inside him all along (of course it was).

One of our favorite toy creators, Jimmyjane, has just teamed up with Ace Hotels (in their NYC and Palm Springs locations) to offer guests a room upgrade that includes a Jimmyjane-curated selection of sexy goods, which can be purchased online, at check-in or from Ace’s late-night room service menu. No travel plans to NYC or Palm Springs? Jimmyjane.com is offering several packages that allow you to bring the Ace experience home with you (for example, the $89 “Voyeur” package includes TCHO Drinking Chocolate, a blindfold and cuffs, the French softcore Emmanuelle Collection, a bullet vibe, a feather tickler, Sir Richards condoms, and Good Clean Love lubricant — kind of an awesome Valentine’s Gift, hotel stay or not).

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Correction: Breakfast food is my favorite, but I don’t typically do breakfast in the morning. In fact, I’m notorious for not being a “morning person.” This compilation of breakfasts from fifty countries by Design You Trust combines my love for eggs at any time of day with something else I’m a fan of: world travel…

MIT grad student Joe McMichael created Globe Genie, a fun chat roulette-like experience, but instead of randomly connecting you with a stranger (or, as if often the case, their penis), it instantly transports you to a random corner of the world (or at least the random corners that have been visited by the Google Maps Street View camera). As The New York Times writes, with a press of the “teleport” button “this could be a stretch of highway in rural Denmark, a corner in downtown Denver or the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro” (and no surprise penises!). I think the usage of the word teleport is fitting…

Australian auteur Rick Mereki and Tim White created this wonderful travel video titled MOVE, commissioned by STA Australia, that has rapidly gone viral around the tubes of the Internet. Starring one lucky dude Andrew Lees, these guys traveled a total of 38,000 miles to 11 countries over the course of 44 days. I recommend just clicking on the play button above and watching it for the first time without any spoiler explanation. That said, I love the way their editing rapidly stitched together Andrew’s time in various locales around the world, some familiar and others not, into one coherent movement that underscores our shared connectivity despite our vast differences.

Photo from New York Magazine
Within the first ten minutes of boarding the Anne, Reid Stowe’s hand-built, 70-foot-long gaff-rigged schooner, he’s telling me about the tantric exercises he first practiced in his early twenties, while traveling between four continents on his first boat, a hand-built catamaran. “I channelled my sexual energy into spiritual energy,” he said. Just how does one do that? “You don’t ejaculate,’” he said. “You keep it all in.” He brings it up for a legit reason (though I’d wager Reid could wax tantric without prompting). We’re talking about how even though he has a literary agent no one will publish his book. “That might be kind of a tough sell,” I said, trying to reason with him. “You know, to men – to not ejaculate.” He comes right back with, “Not if they see how it helped me.”

The Museum of Broken Relationships sounds like a catchy name for a blog or something Carrie Bradshaw might muse about in one of her deep, metaphor-heavy voice-overs. But it’s way more awesome than that: It’s an actual museum. In Croatia. See? Totally awesome. We wrote about the concept a few years back when it was just a traveling collection of items, but now the permanent collection is set up in a sleek white exhibition space in Zagreb. And this year the museum won an award for most innovative museum in Europe (and that’s saying something, given that Europe also boasts the world’s only Phallological Museum).

A lot of the so-called “discreet” sex toys out there don’t exactly live up to their name. Sure, the I Rub My Duckie doesn’t look like a vibrator, but then you’ve still got to explain to your visiting aunt why, past the age of four, you keep a rubber duckie in your bath tub. And then there are those cheap mini vibes that claim to pass for a lipstick in your purse but just look like a kid’s play version of makeup instead. Which is why we love Lelo’s Mia vibrator — it actually looks like a lipstick. And because it’s made by Lelo, the uber-classy Swedish toy designers, it looks like a classy tube of lipstick, and not something meant for that ho Barbie.

Shot over just 24 days, Alex Profit stitched together 2,000 snapshots for this video which takes the viewer on a journey though Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Tokyo, New York and London aka the best vacation ever. All these cities are on my bucket list of places to visit and I’m embarrassed to say…

While efforts to develop high-speed rail routes in the United States have hit all sorts of political snags, another effort at low-carbon travel is quietly making inroads in a majority of the states. The Adventure Cycling Association reports that its proposed U.S. Bicycling Route System reached a milestone earlier this month: “thirty states are now actively working to implement official U.S. Bike Routes for transportation, recreation, and tourism” — double the number from last year!

When people fly, they always focus on the vast view out of their small passenger window and often their photographs reflect that. In the limited confines of a commercial airplane filled with dour passengers looking ahead there aren’t many photographic opportunities except for that sunset or cloud formation, which would be brilliant and unique if…

This holiday season, spare a thought for the hardworking TSA agents who, though they get to wear blue latex gloves when they do it — unlike most prostitutes, one assumes — don’t get paid nearly enough to touch your junk. Also, we’re guessing that doctors and prostitutes aren’t regularly accused of attempting to “cop a…

It might be tempting to label the “journey across America in search of ______” motif a cliché… except it still resonates powerfully. From 19th-century travelogues to Kerouac’s On the Road to Albert Brooks’ Lost in America, the idea of traveling the US as a quest for meaning captures out imaginations, and gives us space for a bit of introspection.

Ryan Mlynarczyk and Mandy Creighton went beyond the dreaming about such adventures most of us do, and decided to set out on their own quest across the country… this time in search of sustainable community. In 2008, they ditched almost everything, and set off across the US on bikes to explore ecovillages, communes, collectives… every form of simpler, more sustainable communities they could find. They’ve visited over 100 communities across the country, and are now pulling footage of their journey into a feature-length film titled WITHIN REACH.

The man of my dreams—Eminem. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/GETTY IMAGES)
I had this crazy dream like a week ago — two of ‘em actually. The first one was more of a realization. I woke up in the middle of the night and was like, “Damn. I’m gonna be busy next year… So I better get some traveling in!”

The other one, also random — involved Eminem, of all people. I mean, huh? I don’t even listen to or think about him. Must have heard his song somewhere — like the time I was in K-mart and heard a lovely muzak version of Richard Marx’s “Ocean’s Apart.” Had a dream that night that I was at my mom’s dinner table introducing Richard Marx as my fiancé. My mother kept looking at his mullet with a hairy eyeball and my sister leans over and says, “Richard? What’s your last name again?” and as soon as he says “Marx,” I woke up to her mocking laughter in my ears. I didn’t go to K-Mart for a long time after that.

What you see above is just a small sample set of illegal items detained or seized at JFK airport from passengers and express mail entering the United States. Over a span of five days Taryn Simon snapped 1,075 photos of contraband stuff. The New York Times has a nice interactive page with some of these…

Christoph Niemann’s latest illustrated piece “Red Eye” in the New York Times pokes fun at the familiar hassles of flight travel (fighting for armrest real estate and bad food), but with an injection of Niemann’s unique sense of humor that is punctuated by his sketches. Speaking of airplanes, have you seen this Salvador Dali inspired…

Sustainable seafood and wine? There’s an app for that… The Blue Ocean Institute and Brancott have launched the free Fishphone iPhone app, which not only provides sustainable seafood information on the go, but also suggest wine pairings.
The eco-travel planner: The Rainforest Alliance has beta launched its new sustainable travel guide and planner, SustainableTrip.org. Currently focused on south of the border destinations, the site features tour operators, hotels, restaurants and other amenities that have been certified by reputable NGOs.

About this time last year, I took note of sustainable agriculture tours that provided great learning and getaway experiences. Want to go a step further, and actually get your hands dirty? Turns out there are lots of opportunities all over the world to exchange your labor for meals, sleeping quarters, and a great hands-on education in organic farming.

For his latest project “Shooting Tourists,” professional photographer Alan Powdrill turns the camera on picture taking (and video recording) tourists. He explains: The idea started with a visit to Rome, an amazing place definitely not short of holiday makers, all after that elusive shot that will make it’s [sic] mark on thier [sic] memory hard…

As our Sunfiltered fans are (I assume) a handsome, sophisticated, and well-traveled bunch, I thought this find by Kottke would be of interest to our globe trotting readers. It seems that a LOT of airlines flock to the more obvious of symbols-birds-when designing their brand logos. The bird and circle combo motif is especially popular.…

Photo by Patrick Semansky/Getty Images What is it about New Orleans that just makes you wanna act like a 25 year old crazed monkey? So I go down to NOLA with my pal G and his wife M last week, because, well, why not? And I haven’t been there since that one time in college…

Planning a trip to a national park or monument this summer? You may not need to make flight reservations or pack everyone into the car: Amtrak’s new Parks in Your Backyard site helps you plan a trip using rail and public transportation.

Launched earlier this month, the new mini-site exists to make national park travel greener: “Passenger rail and national parks have rolled through history in tandem since the 1880s,” said Dean Reeder, National Tourism Director of the National Park Service. “By facilitating visitor access to the many wondrous experiences available in many of our nation’s parks, Amtrak helps us advance the values of sustainable tourism.”

Heh. So. I am trying to get a life. No. seriously. Quit my full time job at the New York Post on July 25, 2009 — otherwise known as “Independence Day” and yes, I played the Martina McBride song over and over as well as “Take This Job and Shove It” when I announced the news. So anyhoo. I have been enjoying life since then — went to Africa, Mexico, Sundance, LA several times, Oscars, you name it. But after a certain point in time, ennui starts to set in along with brain rot. And I will not Brain Rot! Unless, of course, it’s called for.

It’s not as if the brightly colored, compact Wallpaper* City Guides are a lot to carry around when traveling, but now the tightly edited little package is more discreet and convenient than ever, thanks to the latest iPhone app. While I’m not an advocate for the ongoing move from print to screen, the advantages of…